October 31, 2008
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“Shots fired”
That was the subject line on a message to the local community email newsgroup last Saturday. This list is a service of WACO, the Willow Area Community Organization. It was used to announce community meetings and public events until several months ago when someone sent an email promoting a religious event. In the wake of the outcry over that we all learned that the list was open to anyone with anything to tell the community, and a disclaimer was added to every outgoing message: “This list is run as a service to the Willow Community. Opinions expressed
or implied are those of the sender and not those of WACO, Inc.”I hadn’t checked my mail recently, so I scrolled down through several “re: Shots fired” messages before I got to the original message:
At 8:40 this morning, at the entrance to Cayote Gardens, shots were
fired at a campaign sign. If you have information please
contact Trooper Valentine in Talkeetna. If
you have a campaign sign, check it’s location and likely trajectory
of any shots it might receive.There were quite a few concerned and sympathetic replies, and this peevish one:
I was wondering why it is so important to find out who shot Obama’s sign, when there is no emails or concerns about the theft of all McCain’s signs… Hmmm seems odd!!!Then the original writer said she hadn’t heard of any thefts or damage to McCain signs, and others wrote in to say that their Obama signs had been stolen and/or vandalized. I haven’t read the entire thread and don’t intend to. I was wondering how the peevish McCain supporter knew that the sign that got shot was for Obama. Hmmm… seems suspicious.
The original writer responded that she had not known about any thefts of McCain signs, and that all of these acts were infringements of our freedom of speech.
The final salvo as of this afternoon is this from someone else:
FYI my Obama sign has been stolen five or six times.Theft or vandalism
of any political signs, which are an expression of freedom of speech, are
despicable. It really upsets me to think about how
many people have died for
our right to freedom of speech and democratic elections, yet a small number
of idiots do things like steal signs.But shooting is taking vandalism to
another level. This sign was on private property, with the home in the
background. It is violence and intimidation and absolutely cannot be
tolerated.Big difference between trashing a sign and shooting it, with
the sign owner’s home within sight.Indeed it is, and it’s a bit more than the usual level of rowdiness around here.
Comments (16)
Democrat’s signs get trashed here too and never the republicans. It says something about how people feel about democracy.
@Isismoon - Yes, how some people feel about democracy.
yup, happens here too. But then this is a very VERY red state!
Thanks for coming by my site…I like the other party (McCain/Palin) but I think this is the most passion I’ve ever seen about an election. People are really hot under the collar about both candidates. I’m glad it’s nearly over.
I saw a story on the news the news today. An Obama supporter who was fed up with having their sign stolenm hooked it up to an electrical wire.(The Sign.) Somebody went to steal it and got a small shock.
This tickled me.
My bumper sticker got pealed off the other day, I about had a tantrum on my nieghbor (who I know did it) although it really is just not worth it. :]
@GailThePainterly - ”Passion” seems like a mild and neutral word for what I have been observing. Animosity, fear, hatred, racism, deceit, libel, slander. We had some electoral conflict in the 1960s, but I don’t recall it’s being anything near the degree of what we have now. It will not go away after the election, either.
Well! I guess I can’t complain too much about my Obama signs being stolen after hearing this! At least no shots were fired in my neighborhood! That’s scary!
I’m glad no one was injured…
that can’t be you in the photo -so is it your mom? cute little girl -your profile photo
Maybe the Nazis are seriously going to come out of the woodwork after Obama gets elected, and the KKK and all that he-man whiteboy stuff. The Black people seemed like they hated Jooz for a while but I think that Obama wanted that shit majorly stifled. Also, he is light skinned, and he sounds white when he talks- he doesn’t speak in perpetual Ebonics like Reverand Al Sharpton. Nor does he have flammable hair. His ears do stick out a little bit on either side, like Alfred E. Neumann, whose picture was originally based upon a picture in a medical textbook of a boy in Poland with hypothyroidism. (Poland was the kind of a place where they didn’t get much iodine in the diet unless maybe it was from pickled herring.)
This shit about the Blacks and the Jooz allegedly hating each other really bothers me; it wasn’t like that when Martin Luther King was alive, it happened sometime later, during the 1970′s. Those two ethnic groups have common enemies and if they can’t redevelop some kind of alliance then they will suffer.
I don’t know if you see this or automatically have insight into this because you live in a rural area without any major Black population or Jewish community, but you’ve definately lived a very full life even though you’re more sedentary nowadays and you’ve traveled around a lot and run with the wind. Your first marriage as you’ve described it, seemed horrendous enough to me, that you might have some idea what slavery or a slave labor camp might be like.
Also, it definately seems to me, like the U.S. military was very marginalized in a large segment of the American imagination after the Vietnam War. The people who would go into the military or support the military or budget allocations for the military became a much narrower segment of popular opinion and there was little interest in the military, why it was there, or what its capabilities really were, and how it needed to change with the times. This also affects the popular opinion towards the technology of military weapons and aircraft and ships and helicopters, armored personnel carriers, etc., and other than the Red Stater types and people who have money to invest in the stock market, there was great apathy and little interest as to how much graft there was in the military-industrial complex, or as to whether the end product would really be of use to the people in the military and intelligence services whose lives depended on it. This persisted for many years, during the Ford and Carter administrations, and Reagan accomplished spending a lot more money but the public apathy persisted, America basically slept during the Clinton years and during Bush I, and now, suddenly, the hereditary inbred king Bush II being at the helm…Americans in the editorial sense rather than a personal sense got sneak punched and called out to fight, what the hell else would you call it?
Fighting, woken up at 3am from a slumber…not ready…seeing shadows, flailing punches at the air…
an audience gathers to watch, smugly chortling at the great American TudRussell of a dufus as his flattop bristles and he roars with rage.
He’s losing, and soon enough…he’ll turn on his own kind.
@jillcarmel - That cute little girl is me. Why would you think it was my mom? She was born in 1911, and I don’t think she wore pants more than twice in her life (trying on my father’s overalls) and certainly never in childhood. I grew up in coveralls and jeans, and rebelled briefly into granny dresses in the ’60s. I’ll put up another of my favorite childhood profile pics for you today, one I think is even cuter.
@forwhomthebelsentolls - I think Obama’s family background accounts for his speech patterns. His father was African, not the descendant of slaves, and he grew up in Hawaii among a polyglot population, not in some inner city where the street lingo was Ebonics. Do you think that will work against him in getting the votes of black people?
You are right about the population in my neck of the woods. Most of the blacks and Jews in Alaska are concentrated in Anchorage. Doug says he does not recall there being any black kids in his schools here, nor any Jews. I looked and couldn’t find a synagogue in the Valley, but there are three in Anchorage. However, I did pick up from the media some hints of tension between those two groups.
As ever, my friend, I enjoy reading your take on the world.
@SuSu - Obama not speaking Ebonics improves his chances among the white blue collar voters or whatever, probably. I think that America runs the risk of becoming Balkanized and this would not be a good thing in today’s world. Literally, look at the former Yugoslavia for an example of what “Balkanized” really means.
@forwhomthebelsentolls - Are we not already somewhat Balkanized?
hey, what a cutie pie face- I didn’t think you looked- that old in your profile shot-my mom was born in 1925. Yes,I liked those granny dresses or peasant dresses in the 60′s,too.
hubby was thrown out of a shop for wearing an Obama pin. really!!!
he was asked to leave. He was just just looking around the owner saw it and said “you are one of those people! You get out of my store!”
and hubby said “Oh! do I have to sew it on my coat now?”
My Obama yard sign was stolen not once, but TWICE the day I put them out . So on the INSIDE of my dining room window, I posted a sign that says “When women vote, democrats win” . So far, I’ve been yelled at by the fed ex guy, UPS guy, mail carrier, and several neighbors passing by. I love it when I make their blood boil!
@girlymac - Good for you, girl! We need to speak up and speak out. I’ll be kinda glad when all this hot blood cools off some, though. This is the most contentious election I can remember.